What is a funding acknowledgement?

What the statement has to carry

A complete acknowledgement answers three questions. Who paid, named in full rather than abbreviated, because acronyms collide across countries. Which grant, by its exact reference number, so the funder's systems can link the output to the award. And what influence the funder had, if any. UKRI's guidance is precise about form: the agency written out in full, followed by the grant number in square brackets, with multiple grant numbers separated by a comma and space and multiple agencies separated by semicolons. Most other funders ask for the same elements with different punctuation, set out in the funding agreement signed when the grant began.

When the wording is fixed

Some funders prescribe the sentence itself. The United States National Science Foundation's Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide says recipients must acknowledge NSF support in any publication of material based on or developed under the project, using the words: This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Award No., followed by the number. The same chapter requires a disclaimer that the opinions are the authors' own. Many other funders, Australian ones included, set their requirements in the funding agreement signed at the start, so that agreement is the document to check before writing the line. A research office can usually supply the approved sentence in minutes.

Funding is not the same as a conflict

The ICMJE recommendations separate two things that often get merged. The funding statement should include only direct support of the work described, distinguishing support for an individual's time from overall funding of the study. Declarations of relationships and activities, such as consultancies or shares, go in a separate conflict of interest statement, even when the same company is involved. ICMJE also asks authors to explain the sponsor's role in design, data collection, analysis, interpretation and writing, or to state that the sponsor had none. On a poster both statements can sit in one small block, but as two sentences rather than one blurred one.

Mistakes that cause trouble later

The commonest is an abbreviation only, such as NHMRC or MRC, which a database cannot resolve to one funder with certainty. Crossref runs the Open Funder Registry, formerly FundRef, an open registry of persistent identifiers for grant giving organisations, so publishers can record funders consistently; using the registry's full name helps that matching. Another mistake is a missing or partial grant number, which breaks the link to the award. A third is thanking a funder for work it did not pay for. Finally, people sometimes put the funder's logo on the board without permission, which some funders restrict.

Where it shows up in the poster builder

Five of the 40 poster layouts ship with a section headed Acknowledgements in their default copy: Classic Research Board, Hero Figure, Method Flow, Sidebar Rail and Wide Classic Four Column. On the other layouts there is no dedicated block, so the funding line goes into a section, either an existing one near the references or a new Section added from the Poster group of the Add items panel. The lab findings example uses its acknowledgement to name the funder and an analytical service in one line each and to state that neither had a role in design or analysis, which is the shape most funders want.

Wording that fits a narrow column

A poster acknowledgement rarely needs more than two sentences. The first names the funder in full with the grant number. The second covers the funder's role, or states that it had none. If several grants contributed, list them in one sentence with semicolons, as UKRI describes, rather than in a stack of separate lines. Thanks to technicians, participants and field sites can follow in a short third sentence if space allows, but they should not push the funding line off the board. Type size can be small, similar to the references, as long as it survives printing. Read it aloud once against the grant letter: the funder's name, the number and the role statement should all match exactly.

Questions people ask